Lord Whitty (Lab)

My Lords, I would like to correct, in a sense, the impression given by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, of the activity of his Select Committee at the time. I was a member of that Select Committee, along with my noble friend Lady Drake, representing the interests of the Labour Party. We did agree on a compromise, but it was not seen as a long-term compromise. It was seen as a holding position until we had an overall review of the financing of political parties in general. Both my noble friend Lady Drake and I made that point clearly, and it is reflected in part in the report. As the noble Lord, Lord Burns, says, we wanted to get away from the chances of having new Governments switch every few years between the opt-in and opt-out options. I agree that it needs to end, but only at a time when we take account of the way in which political parties, including the Labour Party itself, can be financed by other organisations and institutions. Unless we look at the financing of political parties as a whole, any decision by a particular Government is likely to be biased towards the interests of their own political party’s funding. I hope that this Government will set up a commission looking at political funding as a whole. Until that point, we should recognise, as we recognised at the time, that the long-term effect of removing the opt-in decision would be, in effect, to bankrupt the Labour Party. We therefore need to look at the totality of political funding, and not at unravelling this particular proposition until we have done so. To be frank, some of the ways in which the Conservative Party accepts funds without the consent of company shareholders, and in which individuals give contributions to all political parties, need examination. I would like the Front Bench to commit this Government, and I hope the other parties will also commit, to such a comprehensive review before we swing one way and the other on opt-out as against opt-in. I hope the Government can give me some comfort that they will do just that at some time in this Parliament.